Studies of meaning in human and primate communication face, in principle, similar
methodological problems. In both cases, meaning is not observable directly, but must be …

Communication, when defined as an act intended to affect the psychological state of another
individual, demands the use of inference. Either the signaler, the recipient, or both must …

In searching for the roots of human language, comparative researchers investigate whether
precursors to language are already present in our closest relatives, the non-human …

Human communication has been described as a contextual social inference process.
Research into great ape communication has been inspired by this view to look for the …

Two core questions in the study of speech evolution are whether nonhuman primate signals
should be conceived as referential, and what the role of social cognition is in primate …

An intentional transfer of information is central to human communication. When comparing
nonhuman primate communication systems to language, a critical challenge is to determine …

Determining the intentionality of primate communication is critical to understanding the
evolution of human language. Although intentional signalling has been claimed for some …

Two basic models have been distinguished to describe call comprehension in nonhuman
primates. The first one assumes that primates respond to their own calls by simply attending …

Cheney and Seyfarth's groundbreaking studies on vervet monkey alarm calls paved the way
for a serious investigation of what animal signals might mean and their relevance to the …

Language is a symbolic, culturally transmitted system of communication, which is learnt
through the inference of meaning. In this paper, I describe the importance of meaning …